Menticide
by PrescitedEntity
Summary: MMPR canon, goes into AU, very slight TomKim He wakes, not knowing where he is, or even WHO he is. To find the answers, he scouts the mansion, morbid details dotting his every step. In the end, it might have been better if he never woke... Chapter 2 up.
1. Wake

**Wake**

He regretted opening his eyes even the slit that they'd allowed themselves to be opened, immediately wincing at the lightning sharp jolts of pain that ran along the back of his head down his spine. Rising from his face-down position on the dark, ill-kept hardwood flooring, he gingerly touched a hand to the source of the pain, feeling wet, matted hair stuck together by hard, bumpy pieces. Withdrawing his hand, he saw that it was blood, and by the feel of it, mostly coagulated lumps, but with a slow trickle still running down to the base of his neck.

He opened his eyes fully as the pain dulled, allowing them to adjust to the dim, orange-tinted lighting of the room, and quickly wished he hadn't. The room around him was as horrifically gruesome sight as one might expect from a slasher film, blood smeared and splattered on the walls. A pool of it came from behind the bed; his eyes followed it to see a young man, dressed in a monochromatic red t-shirt, with darker patches of crimson providing a kind of macabre pattern across his chest. The fabric was savagely ripped over the area, as though hacked at by something that was supposed to be sharp, but wasn't, and the wound beneath it deep and ragged; a rib poked out, flesh still attached. The man – perhaps a teenager, with short dark hair – must have died in agony, for his otherwise fairly handsome face was contorted with pain. There was a sort of triumph in that pain, however...

A closer look revealed an jagged arrow carved into the left arm of the cadaver combined with the image of what could barely be made out to be an owl, the point of the arrow making up an owl's beak.

He couldn't take any more of the grisly sight, bending over and vomiting as waves of nausea twisted his stomach and his heart hammered erratically in his chest. Where the hell was he?

Standing, he inspected the room. Writing covered the walls and the large mirror over the dressers-drawer, painted with blood – from the looks of it, probably that of the dead young man's.

_GET OUT OF HERE_

_DO NOT WONDER_

_YOU__'__RE THE ONE_

_REMEMBER!_

_THOMAS OLIVER_

_DON__'__T KI_

The morbid words ended there, with a scraggly line downwards. They must have been written by someone either desperate, hysterical, or psychotic – maybe all three, uneven and suggesting of a deranged mind.

Remember...

Try as he might, he found that he couldn't recall anything about himself. His family, his friends, his name – nothing. Who was he? He panicked for a moment, then settled into a shock-induced calmness as that part of his mind shut down. Perhaps there'd be clues in the house as to who he was, where he was, and why he was there.

The name, Thomas Oliver, seemed familiar. Did the dead man leave those cryptic words as clues before he'd passed away? Whose name was that? Perhaps it was that of the now-corpse? The owner of the house? His?

Yes. Yes, it was his own name; something within him told him so. He must be Thomas – Tommy – Oliver. Concentrating on that bit of recovered memory, he racked his brain in an attempt to remember anything else, but it drew no further epiphanies. He swore in frustration; what the hell was all of this? Eyes drawn back to the words, he tried to decipher their meaning. Get out? Not until he gets to the bottom of this; something is gravely wrong here, but something about the house compelled him to stay. Don't wonder? How the fuck was he supposed to keep from wondering about what had happened, and what was happening? Remember? He would if he could!

Whatever the warning had been for, the danger seemed to be over; the place was imbued with the literal stillness of death. Tommy guessed that whoever or whatever had killed the person in the room had departed, sparing him for whatever reason. Growling in even deeper aggravation at the numerous questions he'd been left with, he resolved to scout out the building a little, though prepared to bolt at signs of danger.

* * *

A/N: This is just the teaser. It will feature canon stuff, and they are Rangers - I don't do full AUs. Inspired by a certain horrific flash game (any guesses?), it's going to be (if I pull it off correctly) somewhat gory, violent, and generally disturbing. Not like any of these other rather horror-lite fics in the section, so you may wish to turn back now. If reported, please don't ban my account! I'll reduce the intensity of what I have planned if anyone objects – it's just that the guidelines for ratings on FF are pretty vague...

So, I've got a marital tangles fic, a slash fic, a humor-ish romance fic, a crossover/adventure fic, and a child abuse fic going... And now I add horror? WTF all over the place. Now that I think about it, I doubt anyone will like this kinda thing here, anyway.


	2. Bound

Fifty-some hits and no reviews! That's a new one – that bad, huh? BTW, It might be for the best if you don't try to visualize certain parts too hard. And never write this kind of thing in the still darkness at one o' clock in the morning.

**Bound**

He exited the room and closed the door behind him, beginning to hyperventilate as the full extent of what he'd seen registered in his brain. No, it couldn't be real! It was a waking nightmare, just that, and when he looked back in, he'd see a normal bedroom, even if he still couldn't remember where it was. Willing himself to open the door a crack, he glanced back, and the coppery smell of blood overwhelmed his senses. He slammed the door shut. Tommy licked his lips, dry from breathing through his mouth the entire time he'd been in shock after waking, and tasted that coppery tang on them from when he'd wiped his mouth with his hand after throwing up, the blood his own from the wound in the back of his skull. Fuck. It was no hallucination. But this didn't change things; he still had to go on – what else was there to do?

Leaving the morbid room behind for good, Tommy moved along the hall, creaks of the floorboards accompanying him with every step, no matter how carefully he tried to tread. The place he was in – it was no mere house. Judging from the dark, lengthy expanse of the corridor, it was a mansion, a manor, and a fairly large one at that. Bloody footprints led out from the room, getting fainter as the blood had dried; someone else had been in that room, most likely the killer. He walked past the doors similar to that of the room from which he came, because the last thing he need was to stumble upon any more of such disgustingly horrifying scenes. Only a few snatches of moonlight dared to intrude upon the construct's interior, as though fearful they'd be engulfed by the sick, self-contained world within. Tommy couldn't blame them; the manor reeked of something unholy, stagnant and festering – the dead body no longer seemed at all out of place.

The twisted atmosphere must have thrown his imagination into overdrive, for he heard a constant, soft whisper in his head, lowly murmuring something wholly unintelligible as though far in the distance. He shook it off – this was no time to be lost in random tricks of the mind. He came across another blood-painted writing – a single word – in the hallway. It was neater than those in the bedroom, but obviously in the same handwriting:

_SURVIVE_

He laughed, the sound having a faintly hysterical note to it. Survive? He intended to. After all, he was _THE ONE_, wasn't he? What did that mean, anyway? Did the killer spare him for some reason unbeknownst to him? Was this some kind of disgusting, sadistic game?

No, no more of those thoughts, those questions. They weren't helpful, and only would lead down the road to paranoia. He had to keep it together if he was to stand a fair chance at getting out of this hellish mansion. A bit of cold water would bring him around, he figured, and he needed to wash the wound at the back of his head, so he searched for a bathroom, finding one eventually after passing several more closed bedrooms.

Entering, Tommy noted that it smelled faintly repugnant, as of rotting meat, a stench that nearly drove him off, if not for the fact that it was so faint that he simply assumed it was coming from the toilet; someone had probably forgotten to flush or something. He turned to face the mirror, a long-haired brunet staring back at him with bloodshot, sleep-deprived eyes and weary countenance. The cold water he splashed on his face felt refreshing, though, so much so that he almost forgot his troubles, temporarily. He ran his fingers through his hair, massaging around the wounded area and cleaning it out.

Rising from his hunched position over the sink, he noticed that the shower curtain was shut, occluding the view of something behind it. The odor wafted from that direction, too, and though he was scared to see what may lie behind it, curiosity got the better of him, and he slid the curtain to one side.

"OH SHIT!" He screamed at the sight of the bloated cadaver lying face up in the tub, its skin a mottled mix of hues of blue, green, and purple. The corpse was of a young woman, Asian features still distinguishable in spite of the balloonish proportions to which her face had blown up. Drowning was not the cause of death, however; she'd died of asphyxiation, her own long, jet black hair tied tightly around her neck, twisted into a makeshift rope, strands floating in a spidery arrangement around her torso. Her yellow shirt and jeans were stained crimson, as was the water in which she was half immersed; blood must have seeped out from the single visible open wound on her body that must have been inflicted before death – an owlish arrow carved deep into her right forearm.

Tommy gagged, stumbling back and dry heaving. This...this was insane! He had to get out of there, out of that god-accursed mansion. Before he dashed out of the room, however, he spotted a picture held in the dead young woman's hand. It was faded and water-stained, but he felt a need to take it and see what had been so important that she would clasp it to her in death. The picture came loose from her grip as he tugged on it; he looked over what he'd acquired.

He gaped at the picture, jaw dropping. He stared into the mirror. The faces were the exact same. The picture was of him.

A stream of expletives escaped Tommy's mouth. How the hell? The boy in the picture was tied to a pole, gagged, and bleeding from dozens of wounds, a look of defiance in his eyes despite the blue-black ring around the left one. Barbed wire looped his arms, causing tiny rivulets of blood to drip down them, and a nasty red welt spread over his face. The teenaged boy looked over his own body; not a single scar or other trace of such abuse showed.

Was it some kind of macabre warning? A lost memory? Or worse, a prophesy of what's to come?

Tommy's head swirled with disgust, bewilderment, and fear, and in this, he did not notice the shadow lurking behind him, the whispers increasing in volume as it became ever more opaque.

A horrendous, agonized screech filled his ears, jolting through his head as though it was a physical blow, ringing and reverberating as the apparition continued its shrieking. A glimpse at it revealed it to be the young Asian woman in the tub, only not at all disfigured, translucent and wispy, her hair, arms, and legs fading into nothing. Her face was utterly expressionless and focused upwards; her mouth was not open, yet sounds continued, screams fading into mournful wails, as though she had not been aware of her death. Suddenly, she turned to face Tommy, not ceasing her cries as lifted an arm at him, then swooped towards him, coldness radiating from her as from ice.

Tommy screamed, dashing out of the room and down the hall and a flight of stairs, nearly falling down them in his frenzied movements. The voice followed him, and he felt the frigid tendrils of the apparition's power reaching out to him, chilling the air around him. He ran down another hallway, this time leading to a dead end, save for a door; he opened it after fumbling with the doorknob, dashing inside, only to be met with what seemed to be another dead end. Frantic, his eyes searched the dark for a way out as the ghost closed in one him, finding a door latch on the floor. Tommy lifted it and clambered down the ladder, looking up in bewilderment when the wails abated. The specter stopped its chase, hovering above the cellar. After a pause, its expression abruptly took on a look of abject horror, and with a scream of pain, shock, and grief that shook Tommy to his soul, she evanesced.

He turned and rested on the ladder, gasping for breath. What could have stopped the ghost? Whatever it was, it was worth investigating, and for this reason, he turned climbed back up, turned on the light in the cellar, and descended again, wan rays yield the slightest of illumination of a dark room. As his eyes adjusted, his heart stopped as he came to understand all too well why the ghost had ceased her pursuit...

* * *

A/N: Yarr. Uh. I don't feel very well - I think I'll go hurl now. Made sure my descriptions were accurate through research. Writing this gives me the creeps (heart's pounding right now), and I don't expect many readers to like this, so continuing this will be hard. I don't think I'll be having much sleep in the foreseeable future. Guess I'm a bit of a 'fraidy cat. But the plot makes it worth it, methinks. 

Actually toned it down a bit from the original. Methinks whomever enjoys this fic is either the type to like horror flicks or is mentally unbalanced... Pot calling kettle black, hum?


	3. Suspend

**Suspend**

The dim light permeated the room like a smog, casting faint silhouettes on the walls and what lay in its center, the sight of which sent Tommy's stomach lurching with revulsion. A decapitated male torso, one arm shackled to the wall, another traced vine-like by piano wire looped around the light bulb, swung as little as its binds allowed, its brown-encrusted entrails dangling to the floor from where its hips would have been. Tommy scrambled backwards up the ladder and rammed his elbows against the door, only to find it securely shut, despite not having a lock on either side. After it refused to yield despite his hard pounding upon it, he gave up, breathing heavily as he slumped down and made his way into the room, hoping to find an alternate route out.

Unlike the rest of the mansion, the cellar had a ramshackle appearance, as if having been part of a prior construct which the former was built upon. Flecks of congealed blood dotted the walls and floors, blotting over the creaky, rotted floorboards under the dark-skinned body hanging in the middle of the room. A glimpse of a now familiar motif brought his attention back to the corpse; it was the same owlish figure, an arrow pointing downward, disfigured and more crudely done than in the other bodies, trailing off as it stopped where the cadaver did. Tommy closed his eyes for a moment, not wanting to see any more of the carnage, but the image seared itself past his eyelids, burning into his imagination as a red-hot iron brand. It jarred his resolve to leave back into his mind, and he steeled his nerves; he had to press on to avoid becoming one of the moribund sights he'd come across.

Peering into the shadowed corners of the cellar, the glint of a copper handle caught his eye. He edged past the body and opened the door, leading to what appeared to be a simple hallway, as disturbingly elegant as the rest of the manor. Upon closer inspection, instruments of torture decorated the walls, and in a few small cutaways, larger implements – a rack, a spiked chair, an iron maiden, and many without names – the traditional met the esoteric in its assortment of torture devices, all crusted with the brick brown of blood and bodily fluids. A shiver ran down Tommy's spine, and he hurried his pace, reaching the end of the hallway and opening the door to enter a grand bedroom, larger than the one he'd woken up in. Opposite the door was the dressers-drawer mirror, upon which were yet more words scrawled in blood.

_WARN THEM_

Them? The dead people, perhaps? The body in the cellar did look significantly more decayed than that of the brunet and the Asian girl. But that was hardly something a psychotic murderer would write; who, then, was leaving these cryptic messages?

The shock of all he'd seen caught up with him, breaking his train of thought. Fuck the mysteries of the mansion; he had to get out. Rushing out of the room, he took in none of his surroundings as he blazed through the hallways until coming upon a decorated door, the windows beside it yielding a view of a mist-blanketed forest just beyond this final barrier. Giddy with relief, he reached for the doorknob, only to find his hand deflected by an unseen force. Panicking, he threw himself at the door and collided against the same force, crumpling with a moan of pain at its base, no more than a mere foot away from the outside.

He stayed there, immobile, for what could have been a few minutes, hours, or more – the lighting never changed, as though time itself had been paralyzed by the manor's malicious will. A voice echoed in Tommy's mind that to be killed is better than to wait in dread of death, but he refused to give it audience; when it rose in clamor, he forced it aside, gathering his wits about him. No way in hell was he giving up. There had to be a method of escape. He stood up, and dusting himself off, began piecing together all he'd seen. This was no simple murder, not even the work of a deranged mind, but of something otherworldly – the blocked doorway, the eerily suspended state of the manor, the apparition – all attested to its supernatural nature. Other people had been here; judging from the blood-writings, they had most likely managed to uncover at least part of the shroud of the preternaturalness of the house, and not only that, had endeavored to impart that knowledge upon anyone else trapped within.

But all the others had been killed before they could escape; whatever had killed them did not leave enough time for them to unravel the mysterious tapestry of the circumstances, and if how little he knew after hours of roaming about was any indication, he would not progress any further than they did before the killer dispatched him. Frustrated, Tommy slammed a fist against the invisible barrier over the door before storming off; planning was getting him nowhere; he'd be better off trying to find a second exit. Wandering the hallways, he neared what had to have been the main entrance – multiple hallways met at a central open space. Dashing towards it, his blood, icy, froze his heart from his veins and leadened his legs as he heard the dull, distant thudding of ax strikes.

The killer. The damned killer, blocking what must have been the only exit.

His breath stopped and bile rose in his throat, but he found the sense to slowly, carefully step away, breathing a sigh of relief when he heard no footfalls beside his own. Even so, after sufficiently distancing himself from the main entrance, he stole away and hid in what looked to be a lounge, which, despite the comfy chairs and easy décor, offered not even a meager sense of ease. Wearily, Tommy collapsed into a recliner, his hand coming to rest upon a notebook. It was a journal, its cover a happy, bubblegum shade of pink with embossed, floral borders that could not seem more out of place in such a wretched environ. Curious as to its contents and too tired to do much of anything else, Tommy opened it and began reading.

* * *

A/N: I'm not sure how to best execute the story from here. Y'see, it splits off into three scenarios, and I'm not sure whether to upload them one at a time, or to upload their simultaneous pieces individually. 

My god, it's been so long since I updated anything! This chapter wasn't the greatest, but I had to do something to get back into the swing of fanfiction. I've been busy with homework and roleplays, lamely enough, but finally, something updated. Maybe I'll actually get to work on the other stories now, too! I'm guessing the people reading my stuff gave up waiting, though...


End file.
